Tag: Thoughts

The Forgotten and Faded

EARLY PRELUDE

The human brain– God’s best and worst creation. Also the most confusing and frustrating organ in the entire human body.

Why? What did my brain do to generate this profound hostility I have towards it?

It dragged me through a very tiring and painful journey; picking up all the little sweet details along the journey of life, making me relive it over and over again, and then proceed to forget everything about it. It’s basically a hit-and-run, reaping everything that was ever beautiful from my memory.

But then I found out it wasn’t just me. Other people’s brains do that to their owners too. This generally applies to the whole human race.

I don’t want to forget. Simple as. I don’t want to forget. Neither do I want other people to forget. Because when people forget, memories fade, and when memories fade, people grow further, and when people grow further, friendships and relationships are sacrificed. In the end, everything falls into miserable piles of ashes, or worse, back to the way it was.

The thing is, how can things go back to the way they were after all that has happened? After all the delightful ups and depressing downs? After all the promises and tight bonds? How is it possible that all these wonderful memories can be forgotten and fade away just like that?

I blame the human brain.

I also blame life, and time. Things have a selfish tendency to move on, never staying put, always generating new ideas, people and experiences. Every day, something new always enters our lives, and they stomp out the old memories, or worse, old friends.

As normal as this seems, I don’t want this to happen. That is why I am still stuck in the first gear, still not moving on, still clinging on to what I hold dearly, because I know if I let go, I will forget everything and everyone, and soon apathy will replace passion and vehemence, and there will be no other way to rescue these precious memories from the solemn depths of my brain.

I want to remember. I want to live to a hundred years old and still remember every single detail of my life, so I will know it hasn’t gone to waste. So that I know my life hasn’t really been as worthless as I’d thought it to be. I want the very same for the people around me.

Here I am, weeping alone in my room over the forgotten and faded. Silly, I know. I need to stop thinking too much.

I Believe In Naturality

nat·u·ral/ˈnaCHərəl/
Adjective: Existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind. 

 

I believe things, and living creatures are most beautiful when they are natural, untainted and unharmed by the evil deeds of man.

I believe people are at their finest when they are natural, uninfluenced by the assorted parties of the society.

I believe everyone and everything deserves what they are born with, and are beautiful because of that. No one should be ashamed to be who they were born to be. No one should cover their true selves with masks, façades, cosmetics and lies. Be brave to reveal who you really are as a person, because you are you, you are unique and strange and weird in your own way and that’s what makes you such an amazing person, above everyone else.

Lastly, I don’t believe in judgments, because there is only one entity worthy of judging the people of this world, and that is God. No one else should be your judge, not even yourself.

Yet, I am a hypocrite. But that doesn’t mean I’m not trying.

The Quiet Ones

I wasn’t always a shy, quiet kid. In fact, I was much more of an extrovert in my childhood days than I am now. I don’t know when this social-butterfly-turn-abominable-hermit turning point of my life took place, but what I do know is how huge a turning point it was in my life.

I am scared of people. Of strangers and large crowds. Especially superior people who make me lose self-esteem. There are two kinds of situations in which I deal with meeting strangers/people I don’t know well differently:

  • Situation A: The person is someone I dislike and do not want to talk to. I ignore and avoid them. Unless I am unfortunately coerced into talking, then I start to stutter and my voice comes out all funny.
  • Situation B: The person is someone I like and want to talk to. I start to panic and avoid eye contact at all costs. All sorts of thoughts start to circulate in my mind, most of them imaginary conversation starters which I never have the guts to spill. Basically, I have this general ‘script’ of our imaginary conversation, but most of the time the other person doesn’t go along with his/her lines in my ‘script’ and this results in another panic attack. Either that or an awkward silence. Depending on the situation, I will either keep quiet from that moment onwards or attempt a feeble joke/comment which mostly results in another awkward silence yet again. If the situation persists, I shut up completely and torture myself endlessly for the next hour or two in my head.

If everything else fails, I just smile and pretend everything’s alright. I am pretty sure if everyone could hear my thoughts, they wouldn’t hear me shut up at all.

It’s not like I don’t try at all, because I do, I always do. I always start off by being optimistic, constantly reminding myself, “Michelle, don’t just keep quiet, remember to say hi.” “Michelle, you could start off by asking her how’s school.” “Michelle, remember to smile.” And these reminders usually work if we start on a conversational topic and I cling onto that one topic for dear life. But most of the time I run out of materials to talk about or in the cases of group conversations, I become irrelevant. Then I start to pay more attention to my surroundings. And so I drift away from the conversation and end up in my own bubble, as always, unless I get hold of a possible remark which I hold on to, until the moment is right and under the pressure of wanting to be sociable I blurt it out. This is a long thought process for me so this happens only once in a few minutes, or none at all.

Generally, this is Michelle the introvert in a nutshell.

I see the world divided into two kinds of people: the extroverts and the introverts. I’ve heard of people wanting to be extroverts but never introverts. This leads me to wonder, is being an introvert really a negative thing? Well I mean, yes, social interactions are problems and whatnot but sometimes, sometimes when I’m not pressured to be sociable, I enjoy silence. I can be among a group of people and choose to be silent because that’s what I prefer to be. But apparently everyone thinks more highly of extroverted people so we introverts strive to be more socially outwards but as a strong believer of naturality, I believe no one should ever change themselves because they are made to be the way they are, and changing and altering themselves is just wrong because I think the people of this world are horribly tainted, and that is just wrong. We introverts deserve a place in this world too, and we deserve to be heard, if not verbally then through words or paintings or other creative illustrations.

I find this post very difficult to write. Maybe it’s because I am contradicting myself with every word I spew out or maybe it’s because it’s already 1:30AM and this gastritis is killing me.

Of School Years

I know I’m not really in a place to write about a blogpost concerning “School Years” since I am still technically in school. But just the other day, I was passing by the Form 1 block, observing the thirteen-year-olds of my school, and a stray thought automatically popped into my head.

You people still have a long way to go.

It was an automatic reflex. Not a well-thought-out thought.

I then pressed the rewind button on my life, back to when I was thirteen, scared and confused as I made my first step into this school. For those who didn’t know, I was a late entry into Asma, transferred here after two to three weeks of schooling in Keat Hwa. I was supposed to be in the Asma registration list since all the Pumpong girls who got straight As for the past few years were automatically put into Asma. But it was different during my year. So my mum took some pretty extraordinary measures to get me into the school, and in the end I did, but I admit, during the first few weeks, I really wished she hadn’t. I was a loner you see, because I didn’t have any “primary school friends” with me as opposed to everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, some people were friendly, but as I wasn’t part of their “groups”, I didn’t have anyone else to rely on. It was worse than just being “the new kid in school” because technically, everyone’s a new kid, so being singled out made me feel like a freak. Like I said, not everyone treated me with animosity, but let’s just say I looked forward to the last ringing bell signaling the end of school every single day.

That is, until I got back my first test results.

That’s when I started making friends…and enemies. I won’t go into that part because it’s probably too personal for my liking but I guess I can say my life in school improved immensely after that. It’s really sad that my test results appeal to people much, much more than my personality.

Anyway, back to the topic. I was placing myself in their shoes, and seeing through my thirteen-year-old eyes, back when I thought, man, secondary school sure as hell is going to be one hell of a ride. Five years. Five years! And that’s not counting two major examinations to be sat for! Mountains and mountains of homework! Extra-curricular activities to join! Friends! Rivals! Oh the drama! It sounded really, really tiring and exhausting to me, but naturally, as a thirteen-year-old, I didn’t ruminate as much as I do now. Thus, quite surprisingly, Form 1, 2 and 3 passed by in a flash. I swear, I didn’t know time could pass by that fast. I swear, it just seemed like yesterday that I first stepped into Sultanah Asma School.

Now, I am in Form 4. And I am thinking of the one last year I have left in this school (well, this year is pretty much already coming to an end so I’m not taking into the account the remaining 5 months and 22 days of this year). To think that I had actually thought that my journey through secondary school would be a sluggish one. And now I only have a year left in this school. I don’t think you understand how shocking this was to me right there at that moment, as I stood before 1 Kedah, looking in at the noisy students who were in a rush to pass up their homework. That was me just three years ago. Boy, did those three years pass by in the blink of an eye. Full of both wonderful and horrible memories. And soon, I will be leaving this place. In a year’s time. A year’s time might seem very long, but judging by how fast time passed by in the previous three years, I would disagree.

So I took back my words, because they didn’t need my “advice” anyway. Because before they know it, they will be seniors themselves soon enough, and it won’t be a long way to go for them, like it actually wasn’t for me. I know, I know, I’m not a graduating senior yet, but perhaps I’m glad that I didn’t have to wait until the day of my graduation to realise this. Perhaps I’m glad that I know I still have a year to appreciate the memories I had and will have in this school, as cheesy as it sounds, because I know, once I leave this nest, I’ll never be able to return to the comforts of it again.